Iraq War: Progress, of course

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, September 4, 2007

With Angelina Jolie and Katie Couric heading to Iraq last week, it was high time for President Bush to make yet another surprise visit to Iraq. Over the long weekend, Bush visited the country he pushed to invade. He didn't go to Baghdad, where the revised Government Accountability Office report indicates that 11 out of 18 security goals have not been met. Or Basra, from which Brits have withdrawn troops.

Instead, he opted to go to Al Asad Air Base, in the al-Anbar province, where things have calmed down a bit. There, Bush and his war council put on a show rivaling any number performed on Iraqi soil by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

French news agency Agence France-Presse reported that instead of answering tough questions about the surge, Bush "highlighted progress in al-Anbar province ... as the basis for a strikingly optimistic view of security conditions in Iraq as a whole despite persistent high levels of violence." What else could we expect? This is a man who made it a point to tell anyone who'd listen that he asked his wife, Laura, to pick out a rug for the Oval Office that said, "An optimist works here." Said rug, we're told, features "a burst of sunlike rays." Clearly, delusion is much harder to communicate through textiles.

We suspect Bush is greasing the wheels for maximum spin. Maybe he's trying to save face in the event of a drawdown. Perhaps he's countering the GAO's report on the (lack of) progress in Iraq. Then again, he's probably doing the groundwork needed to ask Congress for more money for his failed war.